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"And then what? You hope to win enough from the earlier matches to settle the debts?" The
Connolly brothers' plan didn't sit well with me. There were too many unknown variables and too
much riding on Kelly winning to save them. Yuri's suggestion rattled around in my head. Was he
right? Was it better to act now and simply ask forgiveness later?
"That's the general idea," Kelly muttered, his gaze fixed on a corner of the lot. Something must
have put him on alert because he went rigid. I gasped when he unexpectedly grabbed the front of my
shirt and flung me behind him. He backed me up against his truck and put his body between mine and
whatever danger he had noticed.
Fully aware he needed to be able to move freely, I fought the panicked urge to grip his arms.
"What's wrong?"
Before he could answer, the sounds of a scuffle met my ears. Winn's harsh voice echoed in the
still night. "On the ground! Now!"
Holding my breath, I desperately prayed nothing bad would happen to my guard. Kelly pushed
back against me, not quite crushing me, but making sure his wider, bigger body shielded me totally.
Running footsteps pounded the paved lot. Soon, Finn and Jack's voices joined the fray.
"All clear!" Winn called out. "He's unarmed."
"Who is it?" Kelly still hadn't moved.
"ID says Richard Hawkins."
"Richard?" I pushed at Kelly's back but he didn't budge an inch. "Kelly, please, let me see him."
Reluctantly, my hulk of a boyfriend eased over just a few inches. I peered around his bulging
bicep to find Richard accepting Winn's help to stand again. Jack and Finn stood nearby, arms crossed
and glaring at the man who had once been a major component of my fledgling tech firm.
Stepping around Kelly, I hiked my backpack higher on my shoulder and headed toward Richard.
Kelly clasped my wrist to stop me but I shrugged it off. Richard might be a corporate weasel but he
wasn't a killer.
Striding toward Richard, I held out my hands in a what-the-fuck gesture. "Richard, what are you
doing? Skulking around in the dark?"
"I had to see you." The middle-aged businessman ran a hand through his greying hair.
"You're supposed to talk to my lawyer. Because you're suing me, remember?"
He exhaled roughly. "Forget about the lawsuit."
"Forget about the lawsuit?" I repeated incredulously. "Do you have any idea how much that
frivolous piece of crap has cost me?"
"It's just business, Bee. Our lawyers will hammer out a settlement and we'll make nice in the
press and life goes on but I'm not here about that. I came here because of Trevor."
My heart stuttered. "What about Trevor?"
"We let him go four weeks ago but he was in our building last night. He broke in and used his
stolen credentials to launch his attack against LookIt from inside our offices." Stressed to the max,
Richard massaged his temple. "I didn't have anything to do with this but I know how it looks. We have
some bad blood between us but I'm not this petty or criminal."
My eyebrows lifted at his continued insistence that he wasn't petty. "Why are you telling me
this?"
"Because I know those sharks you've hired to work PR are going to slay us in the papers
tomorrow," Richard said shrilly. "You have to call them off, Bee. They'll ruin us."
How in the hell had Lena and Ty already discovered Trevor's subterfuge? Their network of
informers apparently knew no bounds. The bill I would soon receive would no doubt reflect their
proficiency.
My lips parted and I started to assure Richard that I wouldn't drag him through the mud but
then I slammed them shut. What was Yuri always telling me about business? Hadn't he been
counseling me to toughen up? Actually, he'd rather indelicately phrased it another way but his
meaning was the same. My mentor had urged me to stop being so nice. Could I be a ballbreaker when
it counted?
Pushing back my shoulders, I made myself as tall and stiff as possible. Looking Richard right in
the eyes, I threw down my offer. "You drop the lawsuit and I'll keep my PR team from running to the
tech press with this."
Richard's mouth gaped, a puffing sound escaping his lips. "You can't do that."
Though my insides wobbled like JELL-O, I faked a calm shrug and presented my best poker
face. "I can do whatever the hell I want. I'm not the one about to be linked to a vicious, blackmailing
stalker, Richard."
Aghast, he sputtered, "Stalker? Blackmail?" He wiped a hand down his face. "Sweet Jesus.
Look I don't have anything to do with that. Whatever Trevor does on his own time has nothing to do
with me or my company."
"By the time Ty is finished peddling his juicy tidbits to the tech blogs and press, no one is going
to believe that."
Richard's panic quickly morphed to anger. His nostrils flared as he gritted his teeth. I watched
his hands clench at his sides and wondered what he was thinking. Surely, he wasn't dumb enough to
charge me, not with Kelly on my right and Winn on my left.
Exhaling noisily, he snapped, "Fine. We'll kill the lawsuit but you have to bury this story."
Swallowing hard, he admitted, "We need the Series B funding from the new venture capitalists or
else we'll go bust. A whiff of this bullshit will kill us."
"Richard," I softly spoke his name. "I don't want you to go out of business. I don't want the
people who work at your firm to lose their jobs either. You have to remember that I'm not the one
who started this fight. You sued me." Dashing a bit more salt on that wound, I added, "I warned you
against hiring Trevor. I called you and emailed you and I tried to tell you that he was a liability."
The older man glanced away from me. His eyes shone with such hardness but I sensed his
regret at the way things went down between us. Once, he'd thought he could push me over. He seemed
to realize I'd finally grown a backbone.
Digging my phone out of my backpack, I scrolled through my contacts and found Ty's private
number. He answered on the third ring. "Oh, sugar, wait until I tell you what I found out today!" [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ] - zanotowane.pl
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